


Uppers

by virusq



Series: m o n s t e r s [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, Gen, Moral Ambiguity, Unbeta'd, ambiguous time period, whatever that trope is where someone jumps in front of a knife to keep it from stabbing someone, whatever that trope is where the big strong man reloads a gun for his tiny girlfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24299005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virusq/pseuds/virusq
Summary: Mara's better than him. He's never argued that. She doesn't need stims to keep him alive. They're surrounded and she's down a hand. He doesn't need spec-ops training to run the odds.Karrde grunts and lunges for her hip, firing her sidearm twice from it’s holster before drawing it. He twists in place, bracing himself against her thigh -- a move he wouldn’t dare sober -- and fires again.Two more shots. Two more thugs down. They’re outnumbered but at least their assailants are terrible at math.
Series: m o n s t e r s [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754248
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Uppers

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta'd because, let's face it, I'm alone in this weird corner of fandom. Your mileage may vary.

They’re pinned down. 

A spray of glass clinks beneath them as Karrde shifts, changing out the energy pack in his gun and handing it to her. Mara exchanges it for her spent weapon, popping out of her crouch and firing twice without sparing him glance.

"They should have taken the deal," she curses under her breath, responding to the inarticulate hiss-thump of surrounding live fire with her own scalding reprimand.

She’s good like that. 

But she’s also wounded. 

Blood limns her fingers where she holds her side. A knife caught her side while she was disarming two assailants and shooting a third. Karrde was too busy flipping the table over for cover to see the glint of metal meant for him. She stepped in front of it, underscoring the red in his ledger.

There’s blood on his hands but he can’t place it. His blood? Her blood? It doesn’t matter. The Syndicate soured the deal. He was willing to negotiate in credits but now they owe him blood.

Karrde pulls the durasteel case into his lap and pops it open with a decisive click. He feeds a cylinder into the applicator and plunges the needle into his neck before Mara can stop him. 

“Are you kriffing serious,” she scolds, her words harsher than blaster fire and aimed straight between his eyes. “ _Now?_ ”

Mara's better than him; he's never argued that. She doesn't need stims to keep him alive. They're surrounded and she's down a hand. He doesn't need spec-ops training to run the odds.

He grunts and lunges for her hip, firing her sidearm twice from it’s holster before drawing it. He twists in place, bracing himself against her thigh -- a move he wouldn’t _dare_ sober -- and fires again. 

Two more shots. Two more thugs down. They’re outnumbered but at least their assailants are terrible at math. 

“Move,” he orders, standing. She obeys. They don’t have time to debate the conscious morality of doping in the middle of a firefight.

He covers their back as she leads the escape. Movement catches his eye and his weapon snaps up, firing. 

He can feel it, now. The stims pulsing through his blood, elevating his heart rate. Time slows to a trickle, outpacing the sweat slipping down his neck and spine. He can feel her turbolaser glare, her labored breathing.

Another shadow shifts. He snaps and fires. 

It’s lightning in his veins. It’s smoldering embers under his skin. 

Snap. Fire. 

It’s ice under his fingernails and in his teeth and behind his eyes. 

Snap. Fire.

It’s exhilarating.

But not right. It’s not his. It’s not the Force. It’s not the preternatural grace and skill that drives Mara. 

It’s not Mara.

His weapon snaps and fires a fraction of a second behind hers, dropping a trandoshan to their feet. He stares at the curling smoke rising from the green scaled body and realizes he’s already slipping.

It’s a stream, a torrent, an ocean, pulling, sucking him under. It’s chlorine in his sinuses and saltwater in his throat. The euphoria of drowning.

How long have they been running?

Mara steps over a body and he follows numbly, pressing his tongue to his teeth as if he can squeeze another second from the aftertaste.

Two more bodies fall in space between them and the speeder but he doesn’t remember firing his weapon. He reaches for the vehicle’s steering column and doesn’t remember sitting down. 

“I’m driving,” Mara declares, her foot shoving his ass hard into the passenger seat.

Afterimages streak through his vision. He catches himself on the sleek metal siding and tastes blood. Dimly, he wonders whose it is: the tang of anger and iron is _familiar_.

She hisses in pain and scratches at the ignition.

“You’re hurt,” he protests, posting a fist in the cloth seat to right himself.

“You’re high,” she argues. 

The engine turns and the world spins. 

“I am _intoxicated_ ,” he agrees, words lilting into an accent he’s repressed for decades. 

His head tilts back softly as the bay lights swim overhead in a hypnotic fashion before vanishing into the darkness of the night sky. 

Air rushes past his face and through his hair. The wind cuts at his skin like thousands of cold-iron needles with white-hot tips. The smell of acid-rain on saturated duracrete mingles with blood and ozone and muddles his senses. The buzz in his skull is indistinguishable from the buzz of neon, his soaked shirt kisses his skin like he's wading through the private pools of the Nar Shaddaa elite. When he closes his eyes, he can taste ripe fruit and wine and sweat and skin and --

He bites his lip and hammers his fist against his thigh. 

He is _not_ charging enough for this batch.

He opens his eyes and breathes. The rush of wind has been replaced by soft buzzing insects. The throaty growl of the speeder’s engine has succumbed to the miserable wheeze of his companion. 

Fear punches his gut and he focuses quickly, willing every shred of sobriety on Mara. 

“Mara?”

She curls inward, at the wheel. Her arms crossed tightly at her ribs and her knees are pulled up against her chest. Her head rests across her knees, red hair matted across her brow and neck. Her green eyes bright and scowl positively feral. 

“If you puke, I’m not cleaning it up.” Her exhausted warning is muffled by a knee pressed into her soft cheek.

He chuckles. It's all he can do to heed her warning as the knot of anxiety uncurls in his stomach.

Mara’s breathing relaxes. The starlit darkness of the evening surrounds them, the open air speeder ticking softly as it cools. It’d be pleasant if they weren’t both crashing through the aftermath of adrenaline. 

“You took out six men.” She stirs. “That’s top shelf.”

Karrde grunts.

“Whatever you’re charging, double it.”

“Agreed.”

Mara hisses and his eyes open again. He doesn't remember closing them. 

"...nt to be there."

"Mm?"

"When you send them the bill," she repeats. Her voice is a low growl that passes through clenched teeth as she adjusts to a more comfortable resting position. "I want to deliver it."

Karrde winces. 

It's a tough score to balance. The Syndicate owes him for his time, the lost goods, the ensuing medical supplies, recovery time, the inevitable PR nightmare. They're out time, men, goods, reputation, a speeder -- it'll take time before the Syndicate recovers enough to afford his business. 

But Mara -- her recompense is beyond calculation. 

They should have taken the deal.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:
> 
> 1) I read Heir to the Empire 20 years ago. This is undoubtedly more head canon than canon accurate but space dad has been kicking around my brain for 20 years, I guess I should let him out now and then.
> 
> 2) Every, _every_ fic I start with Karrde and Mara has her doing something bad ass and him reloading her gun. It's a thing.
> 
> 3) This was supposed to be an awkward hurt/comfort fic but turned into SWG nostalgia.
> 
> 4) The case is full of Neutron Pixie, because that's what I carried around for long hunts on planets that didn't have a resident entertainer to buff me. 
> 
> Fun fact: if you take too many Neutron Pixies before the cooldown timer resets, you'll stop your speeder and vomit all over a corehound den. As me how I know.
> 
> 5) I ship it. But it's painfully one-sided and terrible for business. 
> 
> 6) The more I think about it, the more I fancast Talon Karrde with Indian actors. 
> 
> Fun fact: I fancast Stephanie Beatriz as Mara.
> 
> 7) Look, I made a deal with myself to NOT use my OC in this, but you can pry Nar Shaddaa from my cold dead fingers.
> 
> 8) I like to think Karrde's keeping a running tally of how expensive this business deal is, as if it's still a possibility, whereas Mara is just pure murder.


End file.
